Chinese AI Company Mobvoi Starts IPO Today and Is Expected to Go Public on April 24th

Mobvoi (02438.HK) announced that the company plans to globally issue 84.568 million shares, with 8.457 million shares to be issued in Hong Kong and 76.111 million shares internationally, with an additional 15% over-allotment option; The IPO will take place from April 16th to April 19th, with the expected pricing date on April 22nd; The offer price will not exceed HK$4.10 per share, with China International Capital Corporation and CMB International Capital Holdings as joint sponsors; It is anticipated that the shares will be listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 24th, 2024.

This time, Mobvoi has signed a cornerstone investment agreement for its Hong Kong IPO. The cornerstone investors have agreed to subscribe or cause their designated entities to subscribe for approximately HK$95 million worth of shares at the offer price. Assuming the offer price is HK$3.90 (the median of the indicative offer price range as stated in the prospectus), the total number of shares that cornerstone investors will subscribe for is 24.283 million shares.

The cornerstone investors include Zhongguancun International Limited and Nanjing Economic Development Zone Juzhi Venture Capital Partnership Enterprise (Limited Partnership).

As the world’s first profitable large-scale model company, Mobvoi, if successfully listed on the Hong Kong stock market, will become the ‘first share of AIGC’ in the Hong Kong stock market.

Established in 2012, Mobvoi is an artificial intelligence company with generative AI and voice interaction technology as its core business. It is committed to providing AI CoPilot solutions for users including global content creators, enterprises, and consumers. This includes AIGC solutions, AI enterprise solutions, smart devices and accessories.

China Insights Consultancy report shows that Mobvoi is one of the top AI companies in Asia focusing on generative AI, with a starting point and revenue scale. It is one of the few companies in Asia with general large model capabilities, as well as a leader and pioneer in the application of CoPilot technology for Asian AI.

Mobvoi is not only one of China’s earliest AI companies focusing on developing general large models but also a market leader in commercializing general large models and generative AI in Asia.

According to the Kapbook, since 2020, Mobvoi’s AIGC solution has attracted over 9 million users globally and approximately 800,000 paying AIGC users.

Financially, as the business scale continues to expand and solutions are provided, as of December 31 in the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 respectively, Mobvoi’s operating revenue was RMB 3.979 billion yuan, RMB 5.002 billion yuan, and RMB 5.071 billion yuan. In the years of 2021, 2022 and also in year of20123 , Mobvoi’s gross profit margin has improved with a gross profit of RMB1.492 billion yuan,RMB3.362billionyuan,andRMB3.261billionyuan,respectively.The gross profit margins for these three years were37 .5%,67 .2%and64 .3%.

Mobvoi has successfully achieved a breakthrough in the commercialization of technology, with a core innovative business model integrating technology, products, and commercialization. This has opened up new prospects for AI companies.

SEE ALSO: Mobvoi Officially Submitted Its Listing Application to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong

In terms of business segmentation, Mobvoi’s revenue mainly comes from AI software (including AIGC solutions and AI enterprise solutions) and AIoT hardware. Among them, revenue generated from AIGC solutions by Mobvoi is the highest and has been growing rapidly in recent years.

Mobvoi founder and CEO Li Zhifei is a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, former scientist at Google headquarters, expert in natural language processing and artificial intelligence, and the main developer of the world’s mainstream machine translation open-source software Joshua. Before the wave of large models swept across the globe, Li Zhifei had already led a team to develop Chinese large models, making him one of the earliest leaders in China’s large model trend and continuously exploring AGI and commercialization implementation.

At present, Mobvoi has completed multiple rounds of financing, with shareholders including Sequoia Capital, Goertek, ZhenFund, SIG China, Google and others. This has provided it with greater development space and broader market prospects. This is not only based on recognition and support for the company’s prospects but also helps Mobvoi to conduct long-term and continuous research and development in the field of artificial intelligence, providing a solid foundation for its market competition.

According to the company’s strategy, the company plans to use approximately 44.3% of the proceeds from global sales in the next three years to expand the scale of the company’s multimodal large model “Sequence Monkey,” continuously improve the company’s modeling technology, train and vertically optimize the underlying basic models of the company, introduce outstanding technologies and talents through continuous research and development investment, improve existing program algorithms for solving solutions; about 35.7% will be used in solution development and market expansion in order to increase market penetration rate and enhance marketing capabilities; about 10.0% will be allocated for seeking strategic partnerships, investments, and acquisitions to implement long-term growth strategies for solution development over the next three years; and within the next three years, approximately 10.0% will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.